ORANGE CULTURE IN CALIFORNIA. 123 



thermal belt, at Whittaker's, five hundred feet above this valley, 

 mean temperature at same time, forty-two and one-half degrees ; 

 coldest morning, thirty degrees. Trees more than six years old 

 uninjured. The leaves of some are half rolled up by the dry 

 north winds and drouth, five and seventy-hundredths inches 

 being the season's rainfall to date (January 2ist), against four- 

 teen and ninety-five-hundredths inches to this time in 1878. 

 Young trees in the valley, where unprotected, are badly nipped. 

 The leaves are killed and are falling off; so with young gum 

 trees. Old trees safe. 



Fourth There is nothing to discourage their cultivation. 

 Young trees require shelter every winter until they attain the 

 age of five or six years ; then they are hardy enough, even in 

 the valley. Those protected by evergreen branches fare best. 

 I have never lost a tree or had one injured, and have arranged 

 to plant more ; so have many others. There are trees only fifty 

 feet higher than the bed of Russian river, and thirty miles north- 

 wardly, at Mr. Harry Kier's, now safe and sound and loaded 

 with oranges. 



February 3d Mr. Armstrong wrote as follows : " Since Janu- 

 ary 2 ist, when writing to you on the effects of the cold weather, 

 I find that orange trees in the vicinity of Santa Rosa, where not 

 sheltered from the north winds, have suffered more than those 

 in sheltered positions. Even those, however, are in a fair con- 

 dition, if of such age that the wood and bark were matured. 

 Very young trees, on low land, are badly nipped. Orange grow- 

 ing is no longer an experiment here. With ordinary care they 

 succeed." 



L. P. Rixford, Sonoma : 



First Lowest temperature noted among my orange trees, 

 twenty-five degrees, though the same night, on ground twenty 

 or thirty feet higher, the lowest was thirty degrees. Location, 

 near foot-hills, three miles west from the village of Sonoma. 



Second No orange or lemon trees have been killed in my 

 vicinity, and no serious injury has been caused by frosts this 

 winter. The only damage has been the loss of a few leaves on 

 the ends of the young growth on the youngest trees. Trees five 

 years old and upwards are entirely uninjured. Lemon and 



